The peculiar case of John H Watson
by London-to-Washington
Summary: When Alfred F. Jones is dumped off in London he thought his life was over. Or it was, until he met the cities most infamous detective. Forced to take on an alias for his own protection, Alfred Jones becomes Dr. Watson. But is it enough to save them?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The peculiar case of Sherlock Holmes**

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One day I met a man. A very odd man. One whose brain worked like computer chip stuffed with only a certain amount of information. The rest was deleted, forgotten or simply left out as unimportant. Because after all, everything that was not work, was unimportant. The dynamics of how he lived and worked made no sense to me. How could it? When everything was either 'interesting' or 'boring'. Sadly or perhaps good for me 'boring' included every single aspect of everyday life. How could society go on outside of his apartment when all people did is go, day in and day out, doing trivial things? How can something so uninteresting and just generally boring keep working like clockwork? Something so mundane?

He could only ever find interest in something that tested him; something in the end that would make him 'clever' and show all us regular people how we simply do not use our brains enough. It was madness distilled into its purest form, a certain hyper awareness that came at a cost. Yet I don't believe he ever truly understood what these powers of observation cost him. Never do I think it occurred to him, just how simply different he seemed to us. To him, we were idiots not using the full potential of our brains to understand the world around us and missed the most important details just because we simply were not looking. We were not 'observing' as he did.

221 Bakers street, looking at it now, I don't think I ever fully realized what I was getting myself into when I stepped into those doors. A buddy of mine had told me to look it up, said a friend of his had a vacancy and I should go check the place out. After all I was new to London, far away from my original home in the United States. There were reasons why I couldn't go back at the time, though that's not really important until later. Let's just say that at that moment, I was completely on my own. Bakers Street was my last option if I didn't want to live in a card board box for the time I was in the city. 221 Bakers Street was in essence, nothing spectacular. It was brown, very brown. The only thing that seemed to save the building from looking like some sort of prison was what was below the balconies located on the second floor (though I guess they call it the first floor there in London). Everything below the balconies was made of white stones; all lined up perfectly next to each other, and making it look like an honest to god apartment.

A series of stones created an archway over a black door with 221 printed in golden numbers. The building itself though looked almost gloomy, or perhaps that was just the sky, as it seemed to want to make sure that everything in London looked as gloomy as it did. It was always raining in England, and when it wasn't it was cloudy and when it wasn't cloudy it looked like it was threatening to be cloudy. The few days they had sun people still walked around with umbrellas in their bags or in their hands as if to warn tourists and fellow Londoners that no matter how nice it looked the scenery could change in a second.

Needless to say I hated rain, it held bad enough memories for me and I thought for sure that I was crazy for moving to a place that was known to rain all the time. At the time, standing right in front of 221 Bakers street I was indeed sure I was crazy.

'_I should have listened to Mathew. I should have gone somewhere warm like…Spain or something. Maybe Italy…that's next to Spain right?' _

That day the rain was pouring down the hardest I had ever seen it do since I had gotten to that gloomy island. The streets seemed to flood with rain water as if the sky itself was crying about something.

'_Come on Alfred, you can do it. Just grab the handle and take the room! You don't have anywhere else.' _

It was not that I had not wanted to room with someone, quite the opposite, I loved company. The problem was that taking this ment that there was no turning back to go home, not that I really had a choice of course, but I liked to think that I at least had the option of walking away from this.

"Ms Hudson! The new tenet is here from America!" A thick accent said from the now open door in front of me.

Looking up I blinked surprised to come face to face with sharp green eyes instead of the black painted door of Backers Street. When had this man open the door? Perhaps it had been some time when I had been engrossed in my own thoughts, as even my hand was still out to knock on the door. Immediately I dropped it down.

"Who—"I managed to get out before being interrupted by the man,

"I must warn you that I do have a certain love for the violin, it helps me think."

I raised an eyebrow at the sudden comment, well that was…strange…even by my standards. I had expected, when my friend had described my soon to be roommate as tall, someone a good six feet in the making...but instead the man talking was a few inches shorter than me, and I had to look down to meet his eyes. They were green though; very green however they were framed by the oddest looking eyebrows I had ever seen. They were dark like two caterpillars, almost as if some had decided to take a rest on his face. Perhaps at one point he had tried to hide them with his bangs, but his hair sprung out at all directions to the point it seemed impossible for it to do so. His hair was not dark like his eyebrows though, instead it was a very light blonde which gave his face a slightly odd look to it. I suppose the girls of London would call him Handsome though, it wasn't a bad kind of odd…more of an attractive kind, one that you thought only models could get with a little Photoshop editing.

It wasn't until he finally stopped to take a breath that I managed to say anything.

"What does that have to do with anything?" I asked after a while, this man managed to talk so quickly it was as if he spoke another language and one could never get to a point that one could interject.

"You're here as my new roommate after all. You would want to know if you start hearing something like that at midnight. Now, what about you? Was the fight with your brother that bad that you had to move all the way across the pound? Or no wait!"

He stopped for a moment and looked me over as if I was some sort of specimen in a lab. I had seen the same expression once in the biology apartment of college; a University professor had been teaching the students how to 'properly' dissect a jelly fish when I had walked in late, of course, as per usual, back in those days.

"It was your brother's boyfriend and your Father."

"I…what?" It seemed like through this entire conversation I could only ask questions.

It was a huge turn around as it was usually me who dominated a conversation.

_How does he know about all that stuff? I haven't told anyone since I got here!_

"Elementary, first the accent it's not English, it's obviously American, New English, Massachusetts. Second your 28 years old, but has a cane, why is that, that someone so young would have one? Easy explanation Shot. Screams solider, later you're going to tell me in which country, though never mind, with that tan it's Afghanistan. Third, your time difference is messed up, your watch is still showing the time in Kabul meaning you've just recently come back but you've been kicked out of your house because of some sort of upset friend or relative. And that is you don't want to take over the family restaurant that your, oh I say Great grandfather set up. Don't give me that look; look at the logo on your bag."

Quickly I turn around to see that indeed I had grabbed one of my family's bags that had our logo on it, including the date that the restaurant was founded. When I had left I had been in such a hurry it seems that I hadn't even paid a lick of attention to the design on the bag I had brought.

"Finally the phone, it's a bit old, seen years of being in use, obviously something of sentiment. But it's not a phone that a girl would most likely pick at a store and has limited technology. This leading to the fact that it's your brothers who has trouble with keeping up with how fast everything comes out and instead uses something simple. Then he gave it to you because his boyfriend ended up getting him a new one. Thing is, your brothers boyfriend doesn't really like you and so there was a fight over it. Not just that they feel uncomfortable with….."

The man stopped talking for a moment and I tried to hold in a laugh. While what the other was deducing was…astonishing to say the least, the thought of my Brother having a boyfriend…well that was a funny image to have. Mathew was simply never the type, neither was I really. I had told my family a few years ago that I was bi. It wasn't really a 'coming out' sort of thing, strictly as I simply preferred girls more. Not to say I hadn't had a boy or two before, as I had, it was just more usual to see me come home with a girl instead of a man.

"My brother has a girlfriend." I said simply.

"Girlfriend! Always something!" the man exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation and entered into the hallway of Baker Street, for a moment perhaps forgetting I existed.

"Well are you coming in or not?" He asked after a while, if I hadn't known better I would have thought the man was sulking. Thing was I didn't know better and he truly was. But at that moment I simply nodded quickly,entered the apartment and shut my umbrella behind me. For a moment I looked down at the cane I was forced to carry with me. It made me look like my father, something I desperately didn't want to do. Who would want to look like my scary faced old man? I was to young for a antique like this, and at the time it had been given to me it had taken all my effort to except it.

"That was pretty cool what you did there Mr.…?" I closed the door behind me and tried to pull the man I had just met out of the slump I had unknowingly caused.

"Arthur…But in public you are to call me Holmes understand? And…You thought that was…cool?" the man stared with disbelief for a moment.

"Well yeah, I mean I've never seen some one do something like that before. Pretty awesome if you ask me—"I probably would have said more if not for the woman who half barged half ran into the hallway.

"Are you the new tenet?"

I nodded.

"Uh...yeah...Hi...I think?"

"I'm Mrs. Hudson; it's nice to meet you dear. I'm your landlady. Arthur here was supposed to tell me when you arrived so I could show you around. Hopefully he hasn't been too much of a bother…"

From somewhere up the stairs Arthur yelled back, "I did tell you!" only for her to sigh, and gesture for me to follow her upstairs. I wasn't sure when but some point between the time I was talking with Mrs. Hudson to the time I looked back over at Arthur he had disappeared up the creaky looking steps. This was the first of many times I some how managed to get lost, loose, and be left by Arthur. No matter how hard I tried to keep track of him it was like he was a ghost disappearing and reappearing on a whim just to scare me. The only thing that seemed to keep me from thinking he was a spirit hell bent on sending me to my own early grave was the occasional bump of the shoulder or pat on the back that would happen between us.

"Whoa…This place is huge! Bigger than any apartment that I've seen back in the States." I exclaimed stepping into the apartment and looking around. It was big, one hallway stretched to one side, doors peaked out from around corners to prove that there was indeed two bed rooms in the flat. A odd floral print wallpaper decorated the room, it looked old...ancient even. Odd for a expensive flat in central London. Two windows sat on the back wall over looking the street, there a work area seemed to be set up with a clutter of things. Books, upon books, test tubes, vials of liquid I couldn't quiet figure out what they were and a scattering of clothes. In fact the only clothes that seemed to be picked up off the floor was a deerstalker sitting on one of the couches and a jacket. Standing now in the living room amongst the clutter I could make out the faintest smell of something burning. But it wasn't the smell of toast or something normal. No, it was the odd smell of rubber, acid, and something else...some sort of meat...chicken maybe? What was this man doing?

"Ms Hudson!" Came a sudden call from the kitchen.

"What is it Arthur?" the woman asked walking towards the kitchen and leaving me to inspect the odd objects on the mantle place.

"Where have you put the body parts that were in here?"

I stopped searching; my fingers only a few inches away from the skull on the mantle when I heard this …perhaps I had simply misheard Arthur. Yeah that had to be it.

"Putting arms in my fridge! And Heads! And eyes! Well I wouldn't touch them! I'm your landlady not your housekeeper Arthur!"

Okay, so I had defiantly heard body parts. Had I, somehow become acquainted with a serial murder on only my third day in London?

"It was for _research_!" Arthur stressed from inside the kitchen and stormed out to see me holding the skull from the mantel.

From what I could tell though, this was indeed a real human skull. I had after all worked with enough injuries from the war to identify one.

"So you found that?" Arthur asked coming out of the kitchen, the burning smell from earlier seemed to become more profound as he moved closer to me. I wondered why I hadn't noticed it earlier. I nodded, setting the skull down carefully and beginning to reach for the gun I carried with me.

To tell the truth, it wasn't so much for protection any more as it was that I simply did not feel safe without it. I _needed_ it. It was like a drug that I couldn't wan myself from and I had found that I could only go an hour or so without it being on my person.

"No need to make it seem like I'm going to kill you Mr. Jones." I snorted, why did this sound like one of these really corny police dramas?

"The bodies?" I asked eyes flickering towards the kitchen.

"Research." Arthur said nonchalantly, there was a hint of testiness in his voice, as if he hated to repeat himself.

"So you just, oh…go out into creepy cemeteries and dig up bodies for…research?"

My hands were itching to grab it; it was a M1911 semi-automatic I carried in my jacket pocket. And if you're wondering, yes I do indeed have a license for it. Thank you very much.

"No need to reach for the gun Mr. Jones, I work in a Morgue. But. I'm also a consulting detective. No need to ask what it is I made the job up. I am, after all the only one in the world. When the police aren't sure how to solve a case they come to me for help. This research of mine helps me keep track of the different ways a body can deteriorate to help with my most recent case. "

I studied him for a moment as he did the same, "You could be lying." I said suddenly.

"I could be." He agreed but sat coolly, calmly as if we were chatting about the weather.

"I could call the police." I said "To confirm it."

He simply shrugged. "Go ahead."

After a long pause though, I sat down and slumped back into the chair opposite of the detective and tried to relax.

"I'm sorry I—"

The detective sat down as well and shook his head.

"Oh no no, quiet fine, I quiet understand. Being a solider straight out of the war is going to make you nervous about people, especially after the attack. Oh don't give me that look, the shot in your shoulder. You were caring for someone out on the battlefield, turned out to be a spy and they shot you, yes trust issues. Evident from the sweat, the flickering eyes, the dilated pupils, obvious. The fight at home worsened it. That's why you're here, it is not simply that you can't trust others, but you cannot trust yourself either."

He paused for a moment.

"Well no need to worry about that. Welcome to Baker Street Mr. Jones. I've been looking for someone like you."

I looked him over wearily for a moment, not understanding.

"I've been looking for someone who will not believe everything someone tells them simply because. The underworld is a very dangerous place, especially London's." He specified.

I was both amazed, and though I care not to admit it, slightly terrified. At the time I blamed it on the fact that this man could tell my entire life story, problems that I didn't care to admit to myself, and the answers to questions I hadn't even asked with little evidence. His powers of deduction were amazing.…. I know now however it was something different. There's a certain pull to Baker Street or more like it, the person who would come to be known as Sherlock Holmes by the public, and I was pulled in head first. The time at Baker Street always seems to slow when he is there, like it is at the command of the detective, and I was no different. I always wanted to be a hero when I was younger, someone to save people. That is another reason why I became a doctor, but at that moment, it wasn't just that Arthur could read me; it was that I knew I would have to step back and let someone else be the hero. I wasn't the main character of this story, no at that moment, though perhaps subconsciously, I realized my job would be to protect him.

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Soooo I haven't been writing in forever! And to tell the truth I've missed it a bunch. If anyone's still watching this account or wondering, I have a few more chapters of _Infiltrating capon_, but that's only if you guys wanna read them. This story has been bugging my brain lately (as I really got into Sherlock a few months ago) and I figured I should do a cross over just to see how it goes over. Tell me how you like it, as there was no beta reader this time we're all really busy out here. And feel free to point out any mistakes if you see them! (Apologizes in advance) Hope you enjoyed!


	2. Everything has a beginning

**Chapter 2: Moving in to Baker Street with a mad man and a skull for company **

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It's hard to really describe how our first case came into being. I could start of course the morning the Inspector decided to give Baker Street a visit at 4 am. This would have been a somewhat rude wake up call, but Arthur had decided it would be a fine time to play the violin a few hours earlier than normal to ease his thoughts, so both of us were up anyway. Or I could tell you that the case started when a body was found murdered and tied to a pole at 2 am the same morning. Or even I could tell you that the case truly began with a letter that had been sent to Scotland Yard two weeks prior but had been ignored and forgotten. Because of these strange happenings I find trouble with where to truly begin with this peculiar case. But if I had to pick a point on where to start, it would be the morning just before we were handed the case files, when I had just fully moved into Baker Street and effectively set up my study.

I was settling in just fine, or at least I thought I was. Sure the dismembered head in the freezer managed to spook me out one morning when I had been innocently looking for breakfast, or another time when I had to run butt naked out of the shower when the water started smelling of some sort of chemical, or yet another time when I caught Arthur standing in the middle of the room pacing and talking to the skull on the mantel that I had found when I had first arrived. This all was, as I was told by the landlady, totally normal. Within the first few weeks I became acquainted with the inter-workings of Arthur's mind. It was amazing to simply sit and watch sometimes, spending loads of time in silence just listening to this guy ramble off about facts and figures, cases and mysteries, causes and consequences. He could pull his small height up and make it seem like he was a politician giving a lecture, an air of importance swirling around him. But he could just as equally slouch his shoulders, sigh, crane his neck down and look like the most dismal man in the world.

I spent a majority of the time in Baker Street writing on odd scraps of paper here and there. Somehow I spent an ungodly amount of time in silence, simply letting memory after memory scrawl down on the page. For the talkative person that I was, I was sure that if any of my friends back at home could see me, they would think me a man possessed by the very devil himself. It was one of these occasions where I was hunkered down in the living room, paper balanced on my legs, and a pen clutched in my hand that Arthur decided to burst into the room.

"ALFRED!" he yelled, throwing off his coat and hat.

He always seemed to wear them when he went out. However the reason to why was still a mystery to me. I looked up quickly, startled out of the world I had created around my writing.

"What?"

He stomped quickly into the room, his cheeks were flushed from the slowly cooling air outside, and his bright blond hair was frayed and standing up on end, more so than usual.

"Stillness, silence, and god it's so _BORING_! I know its winter but _MUST_ it be so _DULL_? I _NEED_ something!"

I had found, even from my short time at Baker Street that Arthur could be a quiet person if he wished to be. He could lie down for hours and say nothing, he could huddle over a table staring into a test tube and not make a sound, hell he could run around London chased by a serial killer I was sure and stay deathly silent. The only time Arthur seemed to want to talk, was to elaborate on deductions, show some one up, get the last word, insult policeman, or to complain about his boredom.

I cocked an eyebrow at this sudden outburst and put the pages and pen down next to me. However, I was very reluctant to leave my chair; over the weeks it had become an unspoken rule that this particular chair next to the mantel would be mine.

"Come on Arthur. It's a good thing no one has been murdered, or mugged, or disappeared. Just means that there's less criminals out on the streets."

Arthur simply scoffed, throwing up his hands with exasperation and unceremoniously plopped down in his own chair across from mine.

"It's too loud." He grumbled, and shot me a quick glare, then turned to the window in a huff as I picked up my papers again; refusing to let this new idea I had to slip away from me.

"You haven't called your brother." Arthur said, turning to look at me again.

"No." I agreed. "Mattie—"

"Mathew" Arthur corrected. "You still haven't lost that habit."

Again I made a sound of agreement, letting Arthur's distaste with me accent and shorting of words slide.

"How do you expect to play a proper Englishmen with an accent like that? Any man with half a brain can tell you're from America!"

I was scribbling down notes and ideas again, pen dancing across the page and producing long 'L's and scrunched up 'E's and the occasional huge round 'O'.

"I'll be fine!" I reassured him happily.

Obviously too happily for his liking as he sighed dramatically again and got up to go into the kitchen, most likely to finish an experiment.

"What kind of criminal takes off for the winter? What? God it's boring I might just…."

And then there was blissful silence for the span of two minutes. Then a sudden sharp banging seemed to rouse the house out of its sleep as the doorbell went off continuously, the door banged, someone yelled from the street, I still am not sure how one moment silence reigned and the next chaos took hold.

"For the love of God! MRS. HUDSON! OPEN THE DOOR!"

"I'm not your house keeper!" sounded from down stairs, though the racket must have gotten to her as well as after a minute the knocking stopped and in its place came a quick repetition of hurried steps up the stairs.

Arthur groaned, he wanted nothing to do with the visitor. He had something against seemingly everyone who walked into the flat. Even Mrs. Hudson at times if he was in a very horrible mood.

"Oh how nice to see you, how's the hip? Fine? Good. Now if you have nothing interesting to show me then do kindly leave the flat for the rest of the afternoon."

Mrs. Hudson stood in the doorway frowning in Arthur's direction. Today she was in a pink dress, slightly faded, with a pair of heels on. The busy flower patterns of the dress however were almost blinding, all she had to do was wear some yellow or something and I was sure I would go blind from the sight.

"He means good morning." I said trying to cover for my roommate.

At times Arthur would use pleasantries but not often enough. While originally it hadn't bothered me too much, however my obliviousness caught up with me and even I could pick up on the sarcasm that seemed to drip from the man's voice as he spoke. Arthur stuck his head out from the kitchen to look over Mrs. Hudson for a moment.

"What have you managed to find…?" he was quickly moving out of the kitchen and over to the land lady as if she had suddenly appeared with a bomb in her hand.

"It's not a note from down stairs. It is most certainly not any sort of note from around Backer Street for that matter if I'm right."

He plucked the faded paper from her hand and quickly started to examine it.

"What do you plan to find from that thing?" As of this point I hadn't yet been fully introduced to Arthur's 'work' per say.

Not quite yet, while I knew the very basics, there was still a lot to be desired from Arthur's description of his job.

"How many stairs are there leading up to Baker street?" Arthur suddenly asked, looking over to me.

"How many stairs…? What does that have anything to do with the piece of paper?"

Arthur tsked and went into the kitchen for a few moments, emerging with what almost looked like a butter knife.

"Because it's not so much a matter of _looking _it's a matter of _noticing! _Don't you see? You walk up those stairs every day; you walk up them mindlessly, as does everyone who comes to Baker Street. But I can tell you right now that there are exactly 14 steps that lead up to this flat. You see Watson? Of course you 'See' but you don't 'observe', store the data, make use of it!"

He looked around for some sort of understanding, Mrs. Hudson used to this sort of talk simply sighed and waved it off. Walking back down stairs before the inevitable speech started, yelling back, "I'll bring up some food for you boys then."

"Take this piece of paper for example. It's specific, used for business. No one would notice it at first, that tells us the person we're looking for was in a hurry, on the run, anyway but if you hold it up to the light like so…." Arthur picked up a flash light, torch…it was a torch…I had to remind myself, and shone it through the paper revealing a business's water mark.

The grin Arthur had been sporting since he got the paper seemed to be ready to split his face in to.

"_We're looking for_…I'm not following. Seriously, _we're not looking for anything or anyone. _I'm perfectly happy to just sit on the couch and…play some video games or something."

That had been the trade off, if I was going to move in, we were going to get a damned T.V. so I could set up one of my game consoles.

"You still haven't explained 'Watson' to me either you know. I get not calling me Mr. Jones. Sounds too much like my old man, but you could just call my 'Alfred' or 'Al' or I dunno some variation of my name."

"To many things that could go wrong, to many people that could find out. That won't do in my line of work."

That line again, I groaned. Arthur wouldn't tell him a thing about his job other than what he told him from the first day. '_My line of work my ass_' I thought to myself, huddling deeper into my chair. How was he supposed to know if it even paid anything? How was Arthur going to make it for their first payment on the rent this month. Where was his money coming from? Even as a doctor, even on this army pension, there was no way I was going to be able to pay for both of us. Not this month, or anywhere in the near future.

"It's nothing to concern yourself with."

Arthur simply brushed it off again and ran back into the kitchen to pull some sort of funky experiment that would most likely turn the water yellow in the flat for the next few months. That or it would somehow bring back that green growth that we had had to battle when I had first moved in (yes. First moved in. Like first day.). It had been some sort of green, brown mush with hair, which clung to the refrigerator. I was pretty damn sure that it had growled at me at some point. Now the choice was up to me, should I grab that damn cane of mine and head to see what Arthur was doing, or should I stay here, comfortable and relaxed, in my chair?

"OH! And work on that accent of yours."

Arthur called back. Yeah okay I was getting up, even if it was just to whack the guy upside the head.

"Say it again and you'll be the one making dinner." I threatened and grabbed my cane from the floor.

It felt heavy and unpleasant in my hands. It seemed to much like my grandfathers after gram died. He had seemed so broken, the cane only made the image worse. Was that what I looked like now? Broken? Again I had to remind myself this was something I would be living with for the rest of my life, and I had only a sniper to thank for it.

The kitchen was literally a horrible place to try and cook. Seriously, most kitchens you were supposed to make food in. But somehow in this kitchen the builders were either very high when they built it, they brought in an artist to design it, or Arthur built it himself. Not only did it seem almost impossible to maneuver around the table without knocking something over, but due to Arthur's experiments it had literally become life threatening to eat in its general vicinity. I was sure at one point Arthur had spilled something radioactive and never cleaned it up. The contents in the drawers and cupboards weren't much better. I wasn't sure how Arthur hadn't ended up killing himself yet, by accident of course, seeing as half the cups on the first shelf contained poisons, the second shelf antidotes that were poisonous if you weren't infected by the poisons, the third shelf was filled up to the brim with chemicals that would either explode on contact with a spark, or couldn't be handled even with gloves on. It was only on the highest shelf that the cups were clean and safe, and that was on a 50-50 chance, seeing as some times Arthur puts cups back in the wrong shelf, just to make it 'interesting'.

The table was another problem entirely. In fact you couldn't see the table it was that bad. Maybe at one point the table had been brown, or maybe it had been pale, or maybe it had been black. You couldn't tell any more. Test tubes and burners, beakers and tongs, everything and anything you associated with science was on this table. Arthur always put his most recent experiments on the table as they had 'top priority' over everything else in the flat. Then finally there was the fridge. It was like the seventh circle of hell. He was sure that if there were fridges in hell, this was what it would look like. Unidentified meat was most likely of human origin, if not it had been tampered with. Inside the butter cabinet were human eyes and the middle shelf held a human head which had spooked him on his first day here. I was positive that said head would become a very nice partner for the skull on the mantel place later.

To Arthur, eating and sleeping were funny jokes. Very funny jokes, as he seemed unconcerned with everything that his body desperately needed….

**BANG**

I looked quickly over from the fridge, which I had migrated to during my thought process.

"What is it?"

This couldn't be good, Arthur currently looked like he was hopped up on some sort of sugar, or had been breathing in fumes for too long. The man had slammed his hands down on the table and stood up so quickly his chair fell back.

"What's wrong?" I repeated again.

"I have it!" he announced gleefully.

"Want to tell me what 'it' is?"  
"The note! The bloody note. It's from the tower, written at traitor's gate, early afternoon, judging from the pencil strokes it's a man's not a woman's. Man who feels quiet full of himself, reminds me of someone, wonder if he's still on that diet. Probably. It's almost Christmas after all."

Arthur was pacing while talking, "Data, I'm going to have to collect more data on this matter."

"You're talking as if you're a computer." I said absently shuffling over and looking over the piece of paper Arthur was making such a fuss over.

"_Dear Boss. Let's see each other in hell. Best of luck or else it'll be a one way trip. 12.4./12.24/1.23/2.25" _I said reading aloud, nothing about the Tower, or any kind of tower in the letter, so where was Arthur getting all this stuff from?

"Know the guy?" I asked after rereading it a second time to try to find what I missed. But then again Arthur was always finding hidden meanings in things. If I didn't know he was brilliant, I was sure I would have just put him off as paranoid.

"Hardly I don't associate with these kinds of people unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Right…right…so we just opened up some one's mail then?" Well it wasn't as if they stumbled across much anyway.

"Oh it's nothing to worry about Watson he's dead anyway."

"Dead okay that-…dead…What?"

"Don't worry it's more than likely we'll get a case soon. Just go back to your novel about…what was it…cowboys? Something horribly patriotic."

"Try not to blow us up then."

It was slightly faint, nothing more than a trace, but I was sure that I could smell something at the very least akin to gun powder, and some other chemical…. A compound or element that had been used in fireworks. I frowned lightly, and quickly left the room, not glancing back at the mad genius at the table.

* * *

**Blog of John Watson**

**Literally nothing ever happens to me. **(November 25)

**There.** **Wrote something.**

**This place is boring**

**No. I am not doing this.**

**Oh God. Okay I'm doing this.**

**My new roommate is a genius. **

**I take it back now…I'm sure my roommate is trying to kill us all-**

**Continued from **_**roommate is trying to kill us all: **_So that's how the first part of the day went guys. I mean nothing really happened after that. Sure Sherlock managed to actually blow up part of the kitchen (don't worry we're fine), but Ms. Hudson was really angry with us. Mathew decided to call again; it is a Tuesday after all. If you're reading this Mathew I'm not going home just yet. Stop spamming the voice mail box. Anyway that's how it ended up starting. The real fun didn't begin until well….until the next morning. Needless to say Arthur was excited about it; the most excited I've ever seen the guy. I'll send you all a line when I can but right now I'm to bloody exhausted to do ANYTHING. I haven't slept in a few days but it's been…it's been worth it. 10x over. I think I finally came up with a name for this to. _**The case of the Indian rope**__. _ And Sherlock? Stop reading this. How many times to I have to change my password?

**-**JW MD

* * *

CHAPTER 2~! Hey guys! Sorry for how late this is, it's finals week for all of us back here. I won't be able to get chapter 3 out until the beginning of summer, but thankfully that's not too far away. The real case begins next chapter, but there's hints here. Try to find them. Reviews are always helpful!


	3. Chapter 3

China Town

* * *

I don't think Arthur slept at all that night, by one in the morning I was sure our kitchen was gone, buried under ash and soot, and our phone bill had spiked so much it would be on par with the rent that we paid every month. By two in the morning I gave up trying to sleep all together even though Arthur insisted I should.

"Don't worry; I was in the army after all! And I'm a surgeon; if I wasn't a night owl to begin with I sure as hell am now."

"You'll need all your rest for this case." Arthur argued back.

"Why would I? It's your case, not mine." I was, after all never one for mystery stories when I was younger. To complex, or to dismal in my tastes. No one ever saved another in those stories. The people who could have been saved where already dead by the beginning of the story. Detectives in those books lacked the empathy for the victims that I saw in super hero stories. There, it was never too late to save a victim and it was never too late for redemption.

"You've got to be bored in this flat." Arthur persisted.

It was a bit frightening to watch some of the things that Arthur did while multitasking. Now, pouring some green looking liquid, that he had warned me was highly acidic into a very small beaker, his attention had turned to me, and he wasn't so much as looking at it. Not just that, he only had a cheap pair of latex gloves I had bought earlier on. Needless to say the doctor in me was screaming.

"Art! Be careful! You're going to—"

Pink smoke erupted from the beaker, and Arthur was quickly distracted again.

"Fascinating."

What was fascinating was how he managed to not kill himself before I had arrived in London.

Somehow along the way I had ended up doing all the chores around the flat. Which was utterly insane. Mathew was always the one to play mom, to do everything. Now I was sitting here in a flat in faraway England caring for someone I was sure was going to somehow manage to kill me. I needed that x-box to be shipped over faster. Too bad that Mathew was holding it up, threatening to sell it if I didn't call him in another week.

I was half tempted to call Mathew in a few hours, time differences and all; I could wake him up at 2 in the morning as a bit of revenge.

"Planning something john?"

"Alfred." I corrected again. "Or Al. Hell Fred's cool to. Anything but John. I don't even look like a john!"

"Nonsense. John is a normal name. Perfect for what I need you to do."

"Whatever it is, just get Ms. Hudson to do it."

"I doubt she will be quiet up to what I need."

"What is it this time then? Go get more milk? I basically do that every day! Whatever happens to that milk anyway?"

Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but I frowned, immediately regretting the question. "You know what? I don't wanna know."

"Want to." Arthur had a thing for correcting my grammar as he bemoaned the fact it 'wasn't proper'.

"Whatever."

"Or better yet," I continued. "I could fight that mold in the sink we both know is probably alive, or go and get some more eyeballs from Bart's, or even better! Go break into the Tower of Flippen London."

"Excellent John! Exactly that!"

I blinked for a moment, not quite sure what to do with the sudden praise from Arthur. That was hard to come by. I knew that after living with him for only a few days. The only time I had heard him say anything like that was to praise the flat, an experiment of his, or the chocolate cookies from Ms. Hudson (reason number 23 why I wasn't allowed to tea time with Arthur. Even if he acted so detached, he couldn't hide the fact he had a major sweet tooth.).

"I think I misheard you. What?"

"Oh no John you said it yourself. Now I do expect you back in an hour."

"After I do what?"

"You said it yourself!"

"Well I said a lot of things. You're going to have to specify. Cause if you don't I'm heading down to _GameStop _or _McDonald _okay?"

Arthur made a face when I mentioned the restaurant.

"How you eat that swill I'll never understand. We simply will have to introduce you to real food once the case is over."

For someone who almost never ate, it was weird to see him so against the stuff. Sure McDonald wasn't the healthiest choice. I knew that, but it didn't mean I couldn't indulge in it a bit since I got here. I didn't exactly have a lot of time for it at home.

"Now Watson chop chop. Head off and meet me back here in oh…say three hours. That should be enough."

"I have no idea what you want me to do." I repeated, because unless he wanted me to wander the streets of London at this time, where I will probably get lost and be mugged by some gang or another, I was staying right here.

Arthur let out a long suffering sigh. "Must I repeat everything I say?"

"Yes, I suppose you're gonna have to."

"Going to."

"Like I said earlier. Whatever."

"I need you to break into the Tower of London and retrieve another piece of this paper and one of the decorative pencils they sell in the gift shop. It's very important. The pencil I'm looking for will be on the ground, kicked under the desk. It should, have the culprits finger prints on it. He after all did this note in a hurry."

"You do realize it's almost 3 in the morning."

"Yes. That's obvious." Arthur said, looking clearly annoyed.

"And the tower should open in another couple of hours."

"Yes but by that time someone would have picked it up and smeared their own fingerprints onto it."

Well, that almost sounded like a whine. A genuine, honest to god whine. Like a kid who was being denied a toy at the toy store.

"I may have been in the army Arthur but you do realize that there is no way in hell I'm breaking into the most fortified area in the entire U.K. to steal a pencil, alone, and with this shoulder and leg!"

Arthur only seemed to scoff, as if I was selling myself short.

"It's all in your head John I've been telling you that since you got here."

"Beside the point. I'm not doing it."

"But lives could depend on this clue!"

Ouch, that one hurt. Play on my hero complex why don't you?

"It is the most fortified place in the U.K." I repeated again, though I was running out of things to argue with other then 'do you know how long I can be put in jail for if they catch me running around the tower unless I come up with a very good cover story and 'oh I got lost and wandered in here' probably wouldn't work. All for a lousy pencil.'"

"But it'll help people!"

I was still too new to Baker Street to know that Arthur would pull that phrase to get me to do something for the rest of my time there.

"It could—"

I was only saved from being talked into this when a group of police cars rolled up beside Baker Street, lights on and sirens blasting through the early morning.

"Oh. Looks like they found him. Never mind Watson. Looks like we won't be needing the finger prints."

Before I could ask who exactly 'he' was, an older looking police officer came running up the steps to 221B. He had appeared in Baker Street a few times before, but only ever in passing, and only ever for a minute or so at a time. He was my sign that Arthur had a new case and I should stay out of the bathroom/shower/flat for a little while as he worked.

"Where?"

"Near China town. Are you coming?"

"Please Lestrade; do you really think I would turn this down? Come on then John!"

Well that was new. I was never invited along with Arthur when he went out. But I wasn't given a second to decide on what I wanted to do before Arthur swept out of the room.

"Dammit!"

There was no way I wasn't going to follow him now. Being kept up till this time in the morning and with something going on outside the flat for once….I wouldn't be able to head back to sleep anyway. Besides, I was bored out of my mind. And nothing ever happened to me. Not really. So why not give it a try? Quickly I ran out of the flat after him and out into Baker Street.

Arthur didn't look behind him once, not even when he had climbed into the cab. After giving only the directions of 'follow it.' and gesturing toward the police car, he had dove into a book of all things that he must have grabbed before we left.

I don't think I've ever had a more uncomfortable cab ride.

Not even when I had to take one with Mattie after his favorite hockey team lost.

And that was a pretty uncomfortable cab ride.

Settling myself down in the cab seat I tried not to fidget. But with no one talking, the cabbie seemingly quiet happy to have quiet passengers for once, and almost no movement, other than the occasional flip of Arthur's book I had to find something to channel all my sudden burst of energy into. Which became my phone. I didn't really like it, after all, the words 'for Mathew from Catherine' that was etched into the back of it, seemed to burn into my skin every time I picked it up. I couldn't say I hated a lot of people, but I defiantly hated Catherine, and I knew the only reason I got this phone was because she pushed Mathew into giving it to me. She wanted this constant reminder to stay with me no matter where I went. There was no way I could dump it or throw it away either. After all, I didn't have the money for a nice new phone and Mathew would kill me if he couldn't get in contact with me.

I hadn't given him the flats number or my new e-mail address. I had changed it after I arrived in England. That laptop was one of the only nice things I had, and the e-mail address used to be Catherine's. I took some deep pleasure in deleting it from something she had supposedly 'borrowed' while I was on my last tour. It took me weeks to get rid of all of her shit that she had dumped into the laptop, only to find she had done the same to my stuff when she first 'borrowed' it. Everything was gone, including the few chapters of the story I had typed up digitally when the ideas came to me. All those ideas now lost. She couldn't have found a way to annoy me more.

"John you're thinking too loudly." Arthur complained absently.

"Oh? And what am I thinking about?"

"How much you hate you're brothers fiancée." He shrugged, looking bored. "It's an utter pedestrian emotion and you shouldn't worry about it. After all, you don't live with her anymore."

Emotions in general were never Arthur's thing. Most of the cases that came into Baker street with crying women never….exactly ended on a very good note. Not to say Arthur wasn't a gentleman to them. He could be pleasant, he could at least try to make most of the tears go away. But it was never for the right motive. He never offered condolences, and he only did the first two because otherwise he wouldn't be able to get the information he needed out of a client. He had made me sit through a few of these clients, and I had, I admit been curious about what was going on. But until now, I had only been used as someone to come in at the end and reassure the client. At least get them to feel a bit better before they left. Somehow I felt there were a lot of people who ran out of here in tears before I came.

Arthur waited a moment, another tense moment in the cab I chose to ignore before asking,

"Aren't you going to ask how I figured it out?"

"Right… course. So Arthur how'd you know?" Sometimes, a guy just had to play side kick. But Arthur's deductions could really be interesting. Perhaps if I had found a detective in stories with intelligence like Arthur had, I wouldn't have written them off so easily. His skill was very much a super power to me.

"More obvious this time than usual." Arthur said, starting to run through a string of deductions. "This time it was your body language. When you get upset, or think about something you dislike you instinctively rub at your knee. Most likely because it agitates you the most. You know that the wounds all in your head, and you're annoyed you can't get rid of it on your own. That therapist of yours is awful by the way. Anyway because it's something that annoys you so much, you immediately go for it when you're thinking about your family. Seeing as it annoys you so much, your mind must have connected the two together. But judging by how tightly you're gripping your phone it's not just your family but your brother. But, ah here's where the interesting part kicks in. You're holding it in a way that you're covering the name 'Catherine.' Could mean that you liked her, a sign of possessiveness perhaps. But judging from my earlier deduction a week ago it's more likely you're trying to blot her name out. You don't like her at all. In fact she's most likely the reason you're in England."

Man this guy never missed a beat.

"Did I get anything wrong this time?"

I shook my head. That first deduction had been interesting enough. Funny even, but this time Arthur had managed to not miss anything. Perhaps he was trying more than he had that first time?

"None that I can think of."

"Well you rarely think."

"Coming from the guy who left a human arm in the freezer so long you asked me why we had such a big chunk of ice in there."

"That was an experiment!" Arthur protested.

"It was one after we found it."

* * *

China town was a vibrant part of London, even this early in the morning. Neon lights glowed in shop windows to the point that the road looked green in some places, blue in others, and red for long strips of it. This was only interrupted by the flashing of police car lights that seemed too forced, to wrong, in this vibrant mix of colors on display. It didn't fit in, but I suppose, it really wasn't supposed to. The cabbie had stopped on a road that was probably forgotten by all but the locals. It was quiet, exceedingly so, even the police car sirens had been turned off, only their flickering lights remained. Across from where the police cars had created a small barrier was a place called the 'Lucky cat emporium.' Its lights were dark, to the point you couldn't make out the contents or the interior of the shop and all that you could make out was one golden cat statue in the window, staring out into the crime scene. It was a place I was sure a ghost would want to haunt. After all…that statues eyes seemed to bore right through the cars. Quickly, I looked away and focused on the scene in front of me.

Walking after Arthur towards the police tape, I was surprised to find no one really cared or noticed us as we walked. Were they just used to it then? Somehow it felt more of a simple 'there not looking/observing' to 'they don't really care.'

"Details Lestrade." Arthur and Lestrade were walking side by side, Lestrade, being a tall man, even taller than me, made Arthur look like a high school kid that had been accidentally been dragged here in comparison to a consulting detective sought out by the yard.

"We don't know who this guy is, but about midnight we got a call from some cashier that was closing up a restaurant down the block who spotted our victim. He had been hung from that lamp-post with a pretty thick rope."

Arthur frowned "Seems like a pretty cleaned cut case. Why can't you idiots figure it out? You know my rules Lestrade"

"Well, thing is we can't find any sort of bruising on his neck, and the spinal cord isn't snapped. From how he was hanging it looks like that should have killed him."

"but?" I asked from behind them. Both heads snap back to look at me.

"Sherlock, who's this?"

"John Watson. Why?"

"Why? I can't have civilians running around my crime scene."

"You have me."

"That's…."

Arthur raised an eyebrow, looking daringly at the DI.

"He's a doctor." Arthur said simply "And former Army. If you want me on the case, you'll allow him to come with me."

"….fine."

"Anyway because of that, we think that he was actually dead by the time someone had strung the guy up. What we don't know is why. Seeing as we don't know the guys identity, we can't look for motives, or suspects. All we got is one witness and that's it."

"Mmm, it's only really a 6. I don't leave the house for at least a 7 Lestrade. Do try not to forget that so often."

"He had a note." There it was, the DI putting all his cards down on the table.

At this, Arthur perked up. "oh? Written in blood? Like the last case? Or is it etched into a door, or the floor, or a wall?"

"Well…it was sent to the yard a few weeks ago. It looked like a bunch of nonsense spewed on the page, so we didn't send it to you. We figured it was just a prank."

"Stop beating around the bush Lestrade and tell me what it was."

"It was a set of numbers and it was titled 'dear boss.'"

"Well this changes things!"

Arthur looked excited, almost too excited for a crime scene. What I didn't understand then was that it wasn't the murder that excited him. It was that another mental link, in the long chain of links had been created. Each time a new link was forged, a new set detail, he was that much closer from finishing and figuring out the puzzle. Much like a black smith that looked on to his completed work, proud and happy, Arthur looked on to these cases as a test of his powers, as something great to create, and to beat. What people didn't understand was Arthur could never be a murder. The thought would never cross his mind. Because you see, that would be too easy. That wasn't something he could build, nor something he could solve. No links could be created. A scarlet threat woven by himself would be dull because he understood every part of it. A thread woven by another though…..well…that was simply infinitely more interesting.

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I wanna thank everyone for the support for this story :D


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